Sunday, November 06, 2005

Scope views

I decided to play with the digital camera and the scopes on the bench this morning. The views through the scopes appeared quite illuminating.

Here is a view through the Tasco 4X from my bench. You are looking up the road at a major intersection hidden behind bushes. The road sign is visible and is about 200 yards from my bench. Yes, I know that the crosshairs aren't level. The scopes are resting on my vise as I took the pictures.



Next, the same view through the Weaver 6X scope.



You can see the full size pictures if you want to look. The Tasco is here. The Weaver is here.

Remember, the Tasco is ancient and well-used. The Weaver is brand new, out of the box. I did't do anything to the scopes prior to taking the pictures, except running a lens cleaning cloth across both of them.

Whaddya think?

6 comments:

Kelly(Mom of 6) said...

Being nearsighted, I would have to say the Weaver...

Anonymous said...

I would have to say, Ain't much difference.

Pawpaw said...

I have to say I agree with you, J. Not much difference at all. The Weaver is incrementally brighter, but not by an amount that would justify the extra cost.

In fairness, this test was taken in strong daylight. I don't know how much difference we would see, if any, had the test been tried in twilight.

Anonymous said...

The Tasco is very slightly fuzzy at the edge compared to the Weaver. But at probably 1/2 the price of the Weaver. . . .

Anonymous said...

To do this properly, I think you would have to rigidly mount the scope to something, and then mount the camera to the same something. You would have to be very careful that the focus of the camera was correct when comparing the scopes, otherwise the difference in sharpness would be indistinguishable. For example, the sharper scope had the camera out of focus making the other scope look better because it was in perfect focus.

Looking at a road sign is a great idea! Usually they test optics with a series of black and white squares. Laser printing up a sample ought to be an easy feat.
The night test is a great idea also. I've had a pair of high quality binoculars side by side with a cheap, first generation night vision scope. The binoculars were by far the better thing under low light conditions

That being said, I can't tell a dang bit of difference between them except the magnification is different.

If you could get a proper test setup going on and enough “real person” purchased scopes, that would make a great read. Magazine are too worried about their advertisers to put the two different brands of scopes to test. They get more money out of advertisements then they get from subscriptions. They also rely on manufacture supplied, loaner equipment to review. You can be sure that if a gun is going to be sent to a reviewer, it will be hand tuned to function flawlessly, so a loaned scope will not be a random scope pulled from the production line, but the best that the company can make.

Anonymous said...

The only way to properly test both scopes is comparative views of the neighbor in her bikini. In the interest of science, of course.